Beyond
Communication: Nanotech Does not Exist in a Vacuum
First, let me spell out what Greenpeace's position is on nanotechnology.
I do this because all too frequently any statement that is critical of
the current status quo is (rather foolishly) taken as being somehow "anti-science".

Greenpeace believes that nanotechnology has real
potential to help deal with the problems that industrialisation
has caused for the environment and need to meet the growing needs of developing
countries in the most environmentally friendly way feasible. Specifically,
there are real opportunities for energy-efficient products, cheaper solar
power and cleaner manufacturing processes. If nanotech could be the motor
behind the conversion to a clean, renewable energy system that we badly
need to avoid climate change we'll be right behind it.

However,
alongside these opportunities come concerns.
One is that these opportunities will not be taken up because the political
will and financial incentives are not there; who will invest in clean
production when it's cheaper to dispose of hazardous waste? Others are
about the risks - for example nanoparticles pose new issues for ensuring
health and environmental safety. And the fusion of nanotechnology and
biotechnology poses the prospect of self-replicating "machines" far more
rapidly, and with far fewer conceptual leaps than the conventional 'grey
goo' scenario. These themes and others around nanotechnology were explored
in our report "Future
Technologies, Today's Choices".

What,
then, of Philip Campbell's article?
The first thing I notice is that it focuses on communication. I have some
difficulty in discussing the communication around an issue without examining
the content. It presupposes that the only real issue is about how the
communication is done, and that controversies which manifest themselves
can be described purely in terms of the communications employed. Maybe
this is fashionable attitude in the media age, but the mantra around successful
websites, the ultimate of modern communications, is that "content is king".
So, communication about nanotechnology cannot be divorced from the content
of the issue itself and the issues that surround it.

The
most significant
of these issues stems from the fact that nanotechnology does not exist
in a vacuum. Technology and product development is a consequence of funding
decisions taken by individuals with particular hoped-for outcomes. This
is the system that produces a $100 billion dollars being spent on an International
Space Station (ISS), but only millions on a cure for and control of malaria.
So it's pretty hard to make a case that the control and direction of scientific
funding is ideal. Yet, nanotechnology will enter the same system which
is capable of producing such obscene outcomes.
Advocates for nanotechnology might argue that this problem applies to
all science and technology. Indeed it does, but if nanotechnology is as
revolutionary as many seem to think then the issues apply to nano with
more force than elsewhere. This observation about funding for the ISS
versus malaria control also reveals the flaw in the idea that mere transparency
will temper public concern. Transparency assumes that when people are
able to look inside the decision-making process they will like what they
find. That is, at best, an unproven assumption and at worst outright complacency.

Nanotechnology
is not GM food.
Nanotech is broader with many more sectors of application - it may well
contain much that is not controversial. However, there are some important
lessons that can be drawn from the GM controversy about public concern.
The best place to start is the pan-European research project Public perception
of Agricultural Biotechnology in Europe (PABE),
that examined public attitudes across a number of European countries towards
GMOs. What emerges is not that Europeans are 'anti-GM' or 'anti-science',
but that they have a deep scepticism about the ability and willingness
of governments, companies and scientific institutions to deal effectively
with the issues around GM technology. These public sentiments are based
on past behaviours over a number of years - certainly not just because
of BSE. It is the way these organisations behave, coupled with the possible
risks, which brings out citizen concerns. Whilst it is not always valid
to read across from one set of social science findings to a different
situation, it would seem reasonable to suppose that the same scepticism
from the European public will greet the arrival of nanotech. In other
words, the arrangements around science funding and deployment, who controls
it, the legal framework, commercial involvement, what assumptions are
being made and so on, are all bound up with how people see the technology.
It's not just the technology itself.

Such
a lack of trust in the key players,
together with the points above about directions of scientific funding,
gives the lie to the oft-heard suggestion that 'we need to start with
the science'. The scientific knowledge base is also a product of funding
decisions to find out some things but not others. By the time 'the science'
is available for inspection, those same institutions have had an important,
if subtle, shaping role on what we know - and what we don't.

Rather
than simply seeing
this as a problem, the imminent arrival of nanotech represents an opportunity
to make a fresh start around science and innovation so that the process
delivers socially and environmentally good things whilst commanding public
support. But it needs fundamental reform to achieve this - no amount of
clever communication will achieve it. An agenda for action would include
genuine public involvement in how research priorities are set through
processes such as citizens' juries or consensus conferences. The tools
to do this are available - what may not be available is the willingness
of governments and scientific policy makers to change their ways of behaviour,
give up some power and take public concerns seriously. Ultimately, however,
if the opportunities nanotech brings are to be realised and it is not
going to be greeted by the same kind of scepticism that greeted GM crops,
there is no other choice.

(c) Douglas
Parr, editing by Martin Schäfer

Dr.
Douglas Parr,
chief scientist of Greenpeace, UK, responds on the article presented by
Philip Campbell and focuses on the decision making in science policy and
funding.
(November 2003)